April 25th, 2014

There are many ways to search Ravelry groups, but searching by location can be useful if you are new in town, looking for people near you or if you are traveling and trying to find out more about the yarn situation at your destination.

Since many groups cover an area that is larger than a single town or city, the location search has a few extra smarts. Searching by location will also turn up groups with members that are concentrated (according to profiles) around that region.

You can find this search on the groups tab: browse groups by location (also try choosing “only local stitch ‘n bitch groups” after searching)

(in this example, the Churchmouse group is really big, really active, and full of Seattleites so it comes up first)

Local groups can be pretty quiet compared to those that revolve around topic. You might even consider adding your local groups to your forums in case someone who is new to town comes by with a question.

Bonus: sort of on the subject of local stuff, if you like the Hot Right Now section of the patterns tab, take a look at this Hot Around the World page. It’s just something that I’m playing with and it’s not connected to anything, but it is updates throughout the day
and it’s kind of neat.